Introduction
September 11, 2001 unfortunately relieves us of the need to sensitise you to terrorist threat or developing theories regarding terrorist aims and methods. One had been able to see the live reality of world chaos… live.
WTC and Pentagon actions were immediately followed by the discovery of some
letters, each containing a little of anthrax germs killing, several persons
and revealing
another type of threat many people doubted of, even if its origin isn't obvious.
If today's terrorism has been able to change its nature or origins, it is also
able to change its tools, adapting itself to more and more sophisticated techniques,
according to their availability in the new wIntroductionorld disorder.
Most alarming of these upgrading capabilities of terrorism, and not improbable
today, is the use of so-called weapons "of massive destruction" - chemical,
biological or nuclear or "NBC" or also CBRN when Radiological threat
is treated separately.
An academic author, Rodney Stark , gives us an interesting definition:
" NBC terrorism is the purposeful or threatened use of politically,
socially, economically or religiously motivated violence via nuclear, biological,
or chemical
weapons
conducted by a terrorist group, whereby the primary mechanism to influence
the target is through the inducement of fear, anxiety, and/or destruction."
CBRN or NBC terrorist threat exists. It is by nature asymmetrical, even more
than "classical" terrorism. So, we have more than ever to try and
understand this threat and figure the new rules it induces.
If the use of NBC weapons is to become a standard, like hijacking used to be,
various questions arise:
• What are these weapons?
• What are the limits of their use?
• Would they really be used as mass destruction devices by terrorists?